Marcel Berlins makes the plea that we should rewrite our language, referring to a study that confirmed his own intuition that "the more a word [is] spelled like it [is] pronounced, the more likely it [will] be spelled correctly" (Let's write our language as we speak it, May 21).

He then suggests that we follow the recent example of the Portuguese and eliminate silent consonants. However, since he describes the English spelling system as "insane" I think one can fairly assume it is not just things like the silent "p" in "psychologist" that he has in his sights. He is essentially suggesting a spelling reform, even if he talks merely of a "tidying up operation, eliminating incongruities and inconsistencies". But it is surprising how complicated a task even tidying up can turn out to be.

The problems start with that simple exhortation to write, as Berlins says, "as we speak". This usually means "write as I speak". A language as widespread as English is pronounced in many different ways in many different countries and regions. What do we do, for example, with a word like "forty"? Most Americans (and many people in the West Country) pronounce the "r", while for others it is silent (and thus on Berlins' hitlist). Who decides which variant is the one chosen?

Berlins' modest "tidying up" procedure would enlist the help of "English profs", a suggestion that at once recalls the recent German spelling reform, which commissioned a board of similar luminaries. The proposals they eventually came up with (and don't underestimate the time it takes for any group of professors to agree on anything) were indeed modest: they did not, for example, suggest anything as revolutionary as getting rid of the capitalisation of nouns (or abolishing the ß symbol, unique to German). Yet even their timid proposals resulted in a great deal of controversy, with some opponents taking their complaints to the constitutional court.

When I worked as a university linguist I found that the spelling problems students had - leaving dyslexia aside - weren't in fact connected with silent consonants or all those "-ough" words so often trotted out by reformers. On the occasions they were separated from their spellcheckers they mainly had problems with double or single consonants - "embarrass" versus "harass", or the way in which the unstressed central vowel sound that is so common in English is represented - "feasible" versus "dispensable", etc. More flexibility here wouldn't worry me greatly - we already have it in some cases: both "impostor" and "imposter" are accepted spellings - and I would have thought this would be a more fruitful area to investigate if you really think some reform is necessary.

But all this is small beer compared with my main source of linguistic distress when I read students' work, namely chaotic syntax that often obscures meaning. The problem is probably the unpopularity of reading among large numbers of young people, especially boys, apparently. "Tidying up" our spelling is certain to produce endless debate - but it won't improve writing skills.